Herbalists' Cache white flag

blackfell thinks that he should refuse. he thinks that he should take the time now to attack the man and be done with all this bother. but then he faces reality: this conversation with sun eater has not been unpleasant. sun eater has not wronged him, has not slighted him, in anyway. and he thinks that star eater had been right.

but when had she ever been wrong?

he swallows his pride, though some measure of it still persists, whispering negativity into his mind. but stabbing sun eater in the back does not stand as an option—much to his bitter, bitter surprise. blackfell has never been a man to so quickly give up his grudges, his resentments. morwenna had unraveled him, again, like she once had long ago, just as he had feared.

he swallows and takes a deep breath through his nose. the land is called greymarch. it is a land of politics. of bloodlines. of power, of war. his steps become slower now, drawn by the weight of reliving the past he had left behind. seven territories, each vast with their own armies, their own cultures, each strong, under the rule of one crown. that crown— he looks at sun eater, your wife. she was made to inherit the crown from her father instead of any of her male relatives. she would be queen. like chieftain, but with a power more immense. a power feared.

his posture straightens, his head lifts, his chin tilting upwards. looking forwards now, as if looking into the past. envisioning the days of yore. gjalla was princess of stormrift. her mother, lady of the stormlands, bowed before morwenna when she was declared heir—and when she was declared queen—and swore fealty. i swore fealty, loyalty, to the queen just as gjalla's mother did, alongside my own father. and blackfell's lips curl visibly when he says that, visible that he does not like this, we all served the queen of evenspire. your wife. as if he needed to emphasize that anymore.

he laughs then, for no apparent reason other than the irony of it. how they had all fallen so far to end up beneath sun eater's yoke. when i killed my father and assumed my position as jarl of my home, the queen's council—the men, the vultures, who served as her advisors—threatened war. they claimed i committed treason. that my families tradition was unlawful. your wife did nothing to prevent this. he does not seem to seethe anymore, not like he once had. he had made his peace with star eater—with morwenna. i exiled myself so that my family would live.